If you were to add an AV receiver to your setup...

Tommy B

Tommy B

Tommy B

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Can you still use your current AMP for music, or the front channels?

I've saved up £300, and I was going to buy a home cinema kit, but I realised it'd be better value to add an AV receiver and 2 rear speakers to my current setup.

My question is, would you lose out in quality if you had an AV receiver and an Amp in the same setup?

Setup is like this:

PC (Music) ------> AV Receiver ---- (Preamp Out via phono??)--> Amp ---> Speakers

DVD Player Optical ----> AV Receiver ----> (As above for front speakers)
DVD Player Optical ----> AV Receiver ----> Speakers (Rear Speakers)

I'd assume the above layout is how you would do it. Surely the AV amp has some sort of phono by-pass option, or a set of phono outputs as well the traditional speaker outputs.

Many thanks to anyone who can clear this up.

Cheers
 
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Most AV Receivers have "Pre-Outs". You would then hook these into an input on your Stereo Amp.

So, your stereo Amp would always be amping the front speakers.

I am not sure of the technicalities involved with balancing volume levels though and it's something I have always wondered about.

You would get improved quality as most stereo amps are far better at stereo than an AV Receiver. It's something I am thinking of doing myself.
 
Tesla said:
Most AV Receivers have "Pre-Outs". You would then hook these into an input on your Stereo Amp.

So, your stereo Amp would always be amping the front speakers.

I am not sure of the technicalities involved with balancing volume levels though and it's something I have always wondered about.

You would get improved quality as most stereo amps are far better at stereo than an AV Receiver. It's something I am thinking of doing myself.
Click to expand...

Hmm that's a good point.

Would I even need to bother keeping the amp if I bought a decent AV amp.

I'm looking at this, which leaves £100 to find some rear speakers. To be honest the rear speakers don't even have to be that good as they're only going to be used for films, and perhaps gaming if I manage to feed the AV amp with a 5.1 output from the PC too.

Looking at this (PIONEER VSX916 HOME CINEMA RECEIVER) :
http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/moreinfo.cfm/Product_ID/2835
 
Yeah its usually no problem to keep your current 2 channel amp and speakers, as most AV receivers will have pre-outs so that you can connect a power amp to all the individual speakers.

If its a standard integrated amp, then you need to have the volume set at a constant predefined level when youre playing multichannel stuff so that the levels are correct.

Would you lose quality by doing this? Good question. Depends how good the pre-amp is in the AV receiver compared to the integrated amp you have now, as you'd be using the preamp in the receiver. You could have course totally bypass this and connect your PC directly to the amp as you do at the moment, totally eliminating the AV receiver for music playback, then simply set the volume at the predefined level and change the selected input for multichannel stuff.

Think thats all correct. Sure you'll get more opinions soon :)
 
Volume isn't a problem as I have one of those Logitech keyboards with the volume thingy on it. It's much easier to change the volume via that then keep on changing the amp. I don't think I've touched the amp's volume controller for several months now, it's left at halfway.

The only thing I'm concerned about is the AV receiver would be much more futureproof if it supported HDMI. hmmm. It's big brother is £420 and sounds awesome but I don't want to dig into my savings tbh :D
http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/moreinfo.cfm/Product_ID/2894

Thanks for the replies.
 
A few thoughts:
- The optimum way to integrate a stereo and AV amp would be:
Music: CD > stereo amp > front speaker
Movies: DVD > AV amp (pre-outs) > stereo amp > front speakers
Power the centre and rear speakers directly from the AV amp

Using the above setup, you avoid using the pre-amp built into the AV amp, which are generally pretty dire.

- When I used to have an AV system, I did find that better rear speakers did have a positive effect, so assuming that you can put any old tat on the rear is not quite right. I'd suggest you go with a good pair of s/h speakers.

- Worrying about future proofing an AV amp right now is pointless. To my knowledge, nothing yet available can deal with the HDMI output from a HD player and decode the latest high definition audio formats, meaning that whatever you buy now, will be outdated in the near future.
The safe way to deal with it is to buy a really good stereo amp now, which will not sufer the same issue of obselesence and WILL improve what you listen to, then add an AV amp at a later date if you insist.
 
I sorted this problem a few months ago, I had a Yamaha AV amp for movies and a Cyrus III for music, I had runs of speaker cable coming from each amp and had to switch between the 2 depending on what I was listening too. It was a major pain in the :eek:

Someone then put me onto the the Yamaha DSP-800, its a few years old now but it was designed specifically for this purpose, it has a straight pass through connection for the front channels, you just hook a set of interconnects from the DSP-800 to say the AV in on your amp, I then set the cyrus to half volume and control the overal volume from the Yam. (quite a few modern amps allow you to lock preset volume levels to inputs so you dont have to manually set the volume each time, I know the arcam alpha 9 lets you do this)

It really is a great solution, music is unaffected as the cd player is connected directly to the music amp, as are the front speakers, movies are also improved with better quality amplifacation to the 2 front channels, the DSP-800 only powers the front and the rears.

I sold my old yamaha amp, and picked up a DSP-800 for under £80 from an auction site.
 
AV amplifier left & right pre-outs ---->Stereo amp--->Left /Right speakers

Although you'll need to match the stereo amp volume with the av amplifier. It would be wiser to choose a stereo amp with direct poweramp inputs, such as the Audiolab 8000S /Tag Mclaren 60IRV. The stereo amplifier will then act as a standard 2 channel poweramp, bypassing it's own pre-amp. You only then need to flip the switch on the front for av mode, then use the master volume on the av amplifier.
 
Hmmm.

I reckon bypassing it all together for music is the best idea. That way I can have the jack lead coming from the sound card going directly to the amp, then I can have the front channel pre-amp output from the AV receiver going to the amp too.

The only scenario where this wouldn't work would be if I wanted to connect my PC to the AV receiver, which I don't.

Thanks for the replies.
 
I'm glad this thread's popped up when it has as I've been wondering exactly the same thing as the OP!

My stereo amp's only got pre-outs, not pre-ins, so if I'm reading it correctly can an av amp's preouts be connected to the stereo amp via a set of inputs (ie aux, cd or tape loop) instead? And if this is the case, is it a matter then of matching both amps volumes if you're going to be watching/listening to 5.1 media?
 
Trick said:
I'm glad this thread's popped up when it has as I've been wondering exactly the same thing as the OP!

My stereo amp's only got pre-outs, not pre-ins, so if I'm reading it correctly can an av amp's preouts be connected to the stereo amp via a set of inputs (ie aux, cd or tape loop) instead? And if this is the case, is it a matter then of matching both amps volumes if you're going to be watching/listening to 5.1 media?
Click to expand...

I thought the phono inputs (aux, tuner, CD, tape etc) were pre-amp ins???

As a student about to go off to uni, I'm thinking about scrapping the 5.1 idea and going for a new set of speakers + amp. I was going to get the NAD 32BEE for xmas but ended up getting some other bits and bobs.
 
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